Abstract:

Objectives: To assess the level of mental stress of postmenopausal women.

Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted to assess the level of mental stress of postmenopausal women. Among 213 postmenopausal women in selected areas of Bogra. Data was collected by semi-structured questionnaire after taking written consent. Mental stress of postmenopausal women was measured by Perceived Stress Scale. Data processing and analysis was done using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) version 20. The test statistics was used to analyze the data is descriptive statistics and inferential statistic according to the demand of the study with 95% confidence interval. Level of significance was set at 0.05.

Place and period of study: The study was conducted at Bogra Sadar, Bogra. The period of study was from January 2017 to December 2017.

Results: Among 213 respondents 66.2% are in the age group 45-50 years with the mean age of 50.16 years and SD of ± 3.725 years are from nuclear family and 56.3% had only primary educational background and 42.7% respondent’s monthly family income is in between 0-10000 TK. Most of the respondents 73.2% are moderately stressed, 24.4% are highly stressed and only 2.3% are low stressed. Mental stress is associated with education (P=0.004) and monthly family income (P= 0.031) but not associated with age, marital status, type of family, occupation after menopause (p=>0.05).

Conclusion: Mental stress present among most of the post-menopausal women irrespective of their age, education, occupation, monthly income of their family.

Keywords: Mental stress, postmenopausal women.

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